In Vino Veritas
by Fortitudine
Summary: The lady wants to hire a gunslinger –and she won't take no for an answer.


**In Vino Veritas**

_There are two theories to arguin' with a woman. Neither one works._ ~ (old cowboy saying).

"You're Kid Curry. No, don't get up! And don't say anything. Pretend like we're old pals, you and me, while I sit down. Man in the lobby pointed you out, told me you're one of the best. I'm glad your friend left because I wanted to talk to you alone.

Oh, waiter! Bring me a double brandy.

You probably know why I'm here. I've got a hundred dollars for you, for a real soft job. Like falling off a log. Cheers! Shut up and let me have my say, all right? Dawson's the name, Mame Dawson. I got a card here somewhere if I can find it. Hm…let me brush it off, I guess it's been riding around in my bag a while. I know it says Marie D'Ausson but that's my _nome de garry_, like the Frenchies say. First show I ever worked back when I was still a kid they gave me that moniker. Classy, isn't it? But you can call me Mame. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I got a little proposition that I want to run past you, easiest hundred you'll ever make. Although you sure don't look like a gunman. Most of 'em are a little tight around the eyes, if you know what I mean. You got nice eyes. Not that it matters. I suppose it helps in your line of work that nobody would guess what you really are, though.

But don't think you can get fresh with me, handsome. I'm a businesswoman, see, and this deal is strictly business. Strictly. There's a two-faced, low-down, no-good weasel that I need ventilated and I'm looking for a man with authentic experience, a real professional. I figure that's you. Just keep still a minute and listen to me, will you?

Waiter! Another brandy. Thanks ever so.

So this party I want you to beef is a blackleg calls himself Dandridge. We met in Missouri and if I ever take up with another proposition like him you can kick me, is all I can say. I was playing one-nighters in the upper Midwest and the turkey I was in folded the wrong side of Wauwatosa, leaving everybody but the manager busted. I'll draw a veil over how I got back to St. Louie but I don't mind telling you by the time I saw those city lights again I had everything in hock but my self-respect. I crawled into town looking like the wreck of the Hesperus and feeling like two cents worth of cat's meat and it's while I was in this weakened condition that I met up with one John Dandridge, Esquire. What kills me is I didn't pipe his lay right off, because I can usually spot a balloon-juice peddler while he's still doing warm-up laps. He's got the soft-soap down to a science, Dandridge does. I'm no hothouse flower but he put the touch on me to the tune of five century notes.

You're probably wondering how I got back on my feet so quick after giving those tank-towns eight songs and two encores a night for a measly fin per week? Well, I'll tell you.

Anybody thinks we in the business spend our time eating the bread of idleness had better copper their bet. Mornings is rehearsal, afternoons is matinees, and evenings is performances after which we hop the midnight special for the next town. Naturally when a girl leaves the theatre she's tired and hungry and if a johnnie steps up and introduces himself politely, who is she to go all unhand-me-you-villain on him? Virtue is its own reward but I've noticed that's all it ever gets. When a fellow takes me to dinner I don't ask him to be clever or funny or do anything but pay for the meal, and I always dress up swell and have the latest stories and show him a good time, and what's wrong with that, I'd like to know. Not to change the subject but would you believe one of them once told me I could talk the paint off a wall? The nerve of some people.

I could swear your mouth just twitched, handsome. If that's the closest you ever come to smiling it's no wonder you were sitting by yourself. Waiter, don't keep a lady waiting. Thanks ever so.

So about three years ago I was in Lexington or Louisville or someplace like that and this awful sweet old sport invited me to a bird and a bottle after the show. All on the up and up, you understand. We were just getting chummy when he inhaled a chunk of the comestibles and it slid down the wrong tube. He turned puce and doubled up like a cheap rooming house bed so naturally I knocked him down and bounced on his chest until he coughed up what was ailing him. I'd have done it for anybody. But that put the kibosh on our little _swarry _so me and the waiters loaded him into a cab and I figured I'd never see him again, worse luck. He had a roll on him would choke a Derby winner and one of the waiters let it slip that he owned half the burg. But it's an ill wind, like they say, because when I got back to St. Louie last month after my adventures in wildest Wisconsin there was a letter waiting for me from his lawyers. Seems he'd recently kicked the bucket but some time between our dinner and his untimely demise he wrote ten big ones into his will for me. Wasn't that just the nicest thing you ever heard of?

Which is how I come to be on velvet when a so-called friend introduced me to Dandridge. He's a promoter, he tells me, working on bringing a first-class gambling joint to one of the mining boomtowns out Nevada way. Several of his friends have gone in on it with him, or so he says, and the place is halfway built already. All he needs now is a looker to greet the mutts and stand around in her glad rags and see to it everybody has a good time. And it's purely out of the goodness of his heart that he wants to offer me the chance to get in on the ground floor, but all the while he's throwing out strong hints this arrangement could be made permanent anytime yours truly is in the mood for orange blossoms and Oh Promise Me, if you get my drift. He started handing me the line that I'm just the kid he'd like to take home to meet his poor old white-haired mother and of course I was sap enough to fall for it. So he gets us a couple tickets on the Union Pacific and I forks over half my cash.

Waiter? Bring me another one. Thanks ever so.

It stands to reason if a laddie wants to get Mame Dawson, spinster of this parish, to canter down the aisle with him, he's got to say something, right? It's only polite to mention it at some point. And he ain't, I mean he hasn't. Not so much as a yip out of him on the subject since Kansas City. I've kept my temper until now, which is going some for a lady like I. You'd be surprised if I told you my real name and some of the people I'm related to. And to think I once figured him for the answer to a maiden's prayer. Right now I feel about that dub the way the mayor of Atlanta feels about William Tecumseh Sherman, but I was brung up right and you won't hear me use language that would lead people to take me for anything but what I should be.

Which is where you come in. Nobody has to slap me more than once to get my attention and it has finally dawned on me that the only way I'll ever pry my money out of that lying hound will be by blasting. That's five hundred simoleons Missus Dawson's little girl will never see again, but damned if I'm going to let him get away with it. If there's one thing I hate, it's being played for a sucker.

Waiter! Hit me again.

I don't want you getting any ideas, handsome, but if you leave your hand on the table like that, natur'lly a lady's going to pat it, just to be friendly. You don't got gunman's hands, either. They look more like a card-sharp's…no offense. Bottoms up!

I'll let you in on a s-s-secret…not that I'm going to wave the family Bible around but I'm bearing down on thirty-five. Hard to believe, looking at me, but it's true. I've done okay with my face, all that clean living and pure thoughts, but the pins are starting to go. Trust me, twenty years on the stage will do it to a girl. That's one of the reasons I hooked up with Dandridge, it's time for me to get into a m-m-more res'ful line of work. An' I found another grey hair this morning. I'm getting to where I can locate 'em with a blindfold on and my feet tied in a sack.

Waiter, one more round for me an' my friend. No, I insist! Would you quit interrupting me? Listen, I been thinking. I don't really want that bazoo killed, only hurt a l'il. You can do that, can't you? Dust him off, maybe inna arm? Just to let him know I'm serious? 'Cos if you killed him, there'd go my whole investment. Don't wanna lose all my hard-earned m-m-money, you know? A girl's got her future to think about.

Here's mud in your eye. You're a gent. A real gent. I could get all … all Home and Mother about you. Are you sure you're an outlaw? You're about the best-behaved bad man I ever met, an' I've met my share, believe you me. A lady really should take the time to discuss things with a…a ca'm, level-headed citizen like you, spesh'lly when she's all upset. You're right, you're ab…absolutely right. It was a terrible idea an' I'm glad you talked me out of it.

Well, it's been a pleasure. Waiter! Bring my _compadre _here 'nother brandy. Good evening. And thanks ever so."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Heyes?"

"Hunh?"

"You okay? You look like someone just hit you upside the head."

"No…no, I'm fine."

"That was a nice little quail I saw you with just now. What did she want?"

"Nothing. She…ah…she thought I was someone else."


End file.
